Garden Share Collective : January 2015

on January 4, 2015

Happy New Year. I am kicking off the new year in my garden sharing the saga of our thriving weeds and celebrating some bountiful harvests apart of the Garden Share Collective. Each month a group of dedicated bloggers share their vegetable gardens in hopes of inspiring others to grow their own clean and fresh food. To view gardens from around Australia, New Zealand and England scroll to the bottom of this post.

So whats been happening in the patch this past month. December was a mixture of heat, rain and a few threatening storms. Luckily the veggie patch has survived. The rain has boosted the plants and they look very healthy. Mind you the weeds seem to be doing equally well. I have cut them back and pulled them where I can. Boy do they grow fast. December, January and February is all about controlling the weeds and looking after the plants we have in the ground.

With the days longer and hotter it is all about maintenance. Pulling weeds, mulching where we can, harvesting the last of the spring veggies and preparing beds for the next round of major planting. After the failure of the new garden area. This will be our major project for the year. You will see a photo later in the post of the sea of cobblers pegs which was supposed to be thriving cucabits. This section will be turned and fertilised and put to rest for the winter in hopes that next year the soil will be in a better condition. I can only dream of loads of watermelons and pumpkins. We did manage to have a wonderful harvest of spuds from this area and the rosellas along with the luffa look rather promising.

January will be much of the same, keeping up with maintenance and later this month plant out some seeds for future planting. I just need to get organised for my next round and sort my seed and possibly order some more. I have plenty of soil to turn and condition for the next planting. I like to prep my beds ready for seedlings by turning the soil, adding gypsum & lime, compost, manure and then topping it off with a thick layer of mulch. This way when the seedlings are ready they can go straight in. Next month I will have a plan for my garden. I like to map it out and make sure that crops have been rotated.

HARVESTING: Tomatoes, Potatoes, Kale, Silverbeet, Asian Greens, Cucumbers, Okra, Zucchini’s, Peppers, Capsicums and 2 very small butternut pumpkins. Soon I will have eggplant too – Hooray.PLANTING: No seeds were planted last month and later this month I will plan and plant our next round of veggies. At the moment you can see some of my overgrown okra which will all be kept for seed for next year.TO DO IN JANUARY: 1 – Weeding, 2 – Turning beds ready for next round of planting, 3 – Mulching, 4 – Harvest last of the spuds, 5 – Seed save, 6 – Plant out next seeds for autumn veggies, 7 – keep the grass down, 8 – water if need be.

Sunfloweres make me so happy. Plus our chooks are going to love pecking them as a treat.

The luffa have gone nuts, they are huge. I have no idea what to do with them. I figured I wait for them to dry on the bush? Any help?

This area should be covered in massive pumpkin leaves, watermelons and rockmelons. Instead the bloody cobblers pegs are thriving. I may have a few pumpkins and that is it. We will try to replant this space again next summer. In the meantime we will keep ploughing the soil and adding green manure and compost to the soil.

A few tomatoes and peppers from the garden. We pick our tomatoes just on turning in hopes of saving them from fruit fly.

Can you see the water! We had 62mm of rain on Saturday.

Finally some eggplants. There leaves are yellowing and the have been attacked by the flea beetle again. So I need to give them some love this month.

33 Comments

Wow you okra looks amazing! I tried to grow it once with limited success. Your rosella, tomatoes, egplant, kale, chillies and sunflowers are just gorgeous. Happy New Year Liz, I look forward to seeing what your garden will produce this year 😀

I am so pleased that you have had some rain for your beautiful garden. I have never grown luffas so will watch with interest. I love sunflowers too, it is difficult not to feel happy when you see them 🙂 Thanks for hosting Liz I hope you have a productive month.

I wish we could get some of that rain Lizzie or at least share it out a bit more evenly. We are in another bad season. Do you dry out Luffas and use them in the bathroom as a sponge? Or did I imagine that?

Oh I am so envious of your okra – Mine are just little spindly plants that came up and then did nothing….I have shade cloth and wondering if they need more sun. We also had that wonderful rain, and it seems to feel as though we are finally into the wet season. Let the luffa dry on the vine, and then the skin should just peel off. tip out the thousands of seeds,and then if they are mouldy soak them in a little bleach water overnight. I have been cutting mine in half and then inserting some soap my daughter made into the pocket. Ok off to do my post. Happy New year to you!

This year has been the worst I have ever had with fruit fly and being away from my garden for 8 days really did not help. They have stung just about everything. Next year I am going to try netting everything as the baits just don’t seem to be cutting it for me.

Lizzie.. What is it about weeds? No matter what they survive! I have times like you with pumpkins and melons .. For the past few years – zip! I’m wringing my hands :). Wish I could help with the luffa! Love your garden and yes saw the water ..

Those sunflowers look so cheery. And everything is so green! Can you tell I’m ready for winter to be over already? Sadly I won’t be joining in this month. I don’t really have anything to report as the garden is frozen now. I’ll probably pick back up in March when I start seeding transplants.

Oh and I also wanted to let you know that my feed reader (newsblur) isn’t being timely on your posts for some reason. I got five in a row a couple days ago (December posts), but not this one. I figured you had it up by now so just came over anyway.

62mm of rain in one day — that’s amazing. I don’t think we’ve had that much all up since winter, although rain is expected in the next day or two which should put out the fires. Your garden looks so lovely and lush and it’s so BIG!

This is the first time I’ve seen your page and I’m so jealous of your produce. I can sympathise about the weeds though, that’s about all I seem able to grow. My tomatoes all got attacked by fruit fly too, which was very disappointing. I’m in Sydney and still just learning about gardening in my tiny front yard, but this is very inspiring – thanks! I